Mornings Like This One
by MADAM BETH
Summary: Post-Mockingjay. Epilogue. While hunting one morning to try and escape the painful memories of the rebellion and war that haunt her nightmares, Katniss unexpectedly stumbles upon something in the meadow that reminds her of why she chooses to continue to fight for a future worth living.


Happy Thursday to you all! I wanted to share this epilogue-inspired drabble that I wrote a few months ago and posted to tumblr for two reasons.

1.) Because I have been meaning to put it on my account for about 2 months and keep forgetting to do so (even more so now that the school year has started up again and kindergarten is in full swing!)

2.) Because I keep getting reviews from people who are not logged in to asking specific questions about my WIP Everlark fic, **When The Red X is on the Door** thereby leaving me no other way to contact them than to assure you via this author note that I am 100% absolutely, positively going to finish writing _Red X._ It's a 50-something chapter story guys, of COURSE I'm going to finish it! LOL. My muse has taken leave a few times over the summer and I ended up being pleasantly surprised by a much more active and eventful summer than I'd anticipated. I promise you, a new chapter of Red X is on the horizon, as is the arrival of baby Bow to that story so please, please, please don't give up on it! It may be slow-going but I promise, it will be completed!

 **Mornings Like This One**

It's amazing how different a place that was a solace in your youth can become over time and yet still be a place of quiet seclusion to you as an adult.

Take, for instance, my woods beyond the fence of District 12.

No longer fenced in or off-limits to anyone and still, most people haven't quite adjusted to the freedoms afforded them since the Capitol fell and rarely venture out even half as far as I have always traveled beyond the tree line.

In the Panem that existed before the fence came down, I went there to hunt in order to feed my family so that we could survive. I continue to go there now, not to feed a hunger of my body, but one of a soul still baring the wounds of an unescapable past.

On mornings _like_ _this one_ I wake before even the sun and slip quietly from the safety of Peeta's sleep-heavy arms to enter the forest as familiar to me as the motions of my fingers tying a simple braid to keep the hair out of my eyes before I leave the house. Eyes that still belong to a hunter, though admittedly, a less devoted one than I once was before there were other aspects of life that my focus has shifted to.

There's no longer a need to hunt for the sake of filling bellies that would otherwise echo painfully with hunger, but there is still a need, deep within my bones, to tread soundlessly out into this dense forest and the sanctuary it has steadfastly provided throughout my life. Even during times when my world and even I myself was unrecognizable, the ancient hunting trails and massive old growth trees remained untouched by the Hunger Games, rebellion, and war that changed me and my country so much.

Sometimes I go there simply to handle a bow and arrow for the old familiar reason I once did so; providing a meal of fresh game that the meats Peeta and I buy at the market in town can never quite match in taste. After having spent a few dreadful years using my skills as an archer against my fellow human beings or in some cases, tyrants and true monsters who disguised themselves as human, it is a type of therapy for me. Sometimes it's to prove that I still _can_ feed myself if ever the need arose again. Most often though, my trips to the woods are simply put, because of mornings _like this one_.

A nagging sense of self I've been urged by my Capitol psychologist, Dr. Aurelius, to listen more carefully to over the years makes me take note that mornings _like this one_ have arrived three times already this week. An unwelcome but common reminder of the past, these mornings where I awaken in a cold sweat, paralyzed with the pain of being visited in my sleep by those I've loved and lost come with no warning. They will undoubtedly remain as much a part of me as the burn scars I wear upon my flesh as a reminder of the last, most agonizing loss of my sister.

I race the first rays of sunshine to the meadow overlooking my forest and always stop to rest a few moments to watch the beginning of a new day draw closer and closer as the sun peeks over the far off mountains.

It rises slowly until it seems to slow and almost stop to rest on the humps of their rounded peaks before continuing its ascent. I like to imagine it is as if its appearance alone is promising a new day where perhaps I'll be a little less sad or Peeta, a little farther removed from the mental hijacking he endured during his imprisonment in the Capitol. That each episode he experiences as a result will be a little shorter or a little less intense than the last. After this tiny dose of optimism, I head off to hunt, alone with my bow and arrows and my own troubled thoughts to receive better emotional, physical and psychological therapy than even Dr. Aurelius knows he can provide me with.

I walk amongst these trees, eyes perusing the assortment of green plants that have just begun to peek through the recently thawed ground and breathe in the comforting scent of the earth that provided the meals and medicines of my youth. I pass the early hours in this place where I can escape from the routine I have depended on to hold the pieces of myself together after an abundance of horrors that have been crammed into so few years of a life hard lived.

I take an extra-long time hunting this morning because I worry that I'm slipping back into old patterns of depression and self-loathing. The ever present fear and hopelessness that creeps just beyond the shadows of an otherwise happy and fulfilling life I've built with Peeta since returning to District 12. I pick up my pace when these worries start to overwhelm me, some foolish part of my brain thinking that perhaps by tiring my body out, I will likewise exhaust the distressing memories that sink their claws into my very soul.

I'm moving at a clip I hope can reduce the wailing of my ghosts to a dull roar when my hunter's ears pick up on a sound not normally heard on these pre-dawn hunting trips of mine. The unusual sound causes me to stop immediately, my head turning from side to side in order to better catch the noise if it should happen again. As I scan the surrounding brush with well-trained eyes, I see I've managed to circle back without realizing it and that I'm only a few steps from emerging back into the meadow where these trips of mine have always begun.

I'm startled out of this realization when I hear the same sound again, but this time it is not just louder and clearer, but closer too. I smile and relax my arms that have been holding an arrow at the ready in my bow, waiting to be released into whatever nightmare I'm imagining is about to come blasting into the clearing where I stand motionless. The tension swiftly leaves both the bowstring digging into my fingers and my body as a whole with the relief that can only come from a mother hearing the joyful shrieks of her children playing nearby.

I take maybe a dozen steps before I emerge into that meadow and spot the father of those rowdy children sitting among the yellow flowers that I will forever associate with him and the hope he's returned to my life over and over again. Ever since that first time when he threw a burnt loaf of bread to a starving little girl he'd loved all his life and gave her the strength to carry on when it seemed all was lost.

My smile widens when he reaches up to brush his floppy blonde bangs out of his eyes so that he has an unobstructed view of each move made by the children he waited so very long for. Never having fine-tuned his own skills as a hunter despite my best efforts to teach him, I can't resist sneaking up on him, waiting until I'm only a few feet away before snapping a small twig I've picked up off the ground.

I have to smother a snort of laughter when he tries to jump up while turning around at the same time, which is not something he can easily do even with years of practice getting up and down from the ground with a prosthetic leg. The task is made even harder by the already tall meadow grass waving gently in the breeze above the scattered dandelions and he only makes it to a kneeling position before he is facing me.

There's a brief moment of confusion where his wide blue eyes bounce nervously between my face, the two broken pieces of twig in my hand, and our children still chasing each other around amidst giggles and squeals of delight before he narrows those eyes (identical to the ones our daughter has) at me. I bite my lip, trying to control the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth and catch equal parts annoyance, embarrassment and mirth in the exasperated look he's directing my way.

"They're up and at it early." I say walking over to sit down beside him before he can scold me for nearly giving him a heart attack before the day has really even officially begun. "They keep bakers hours like their father." I tease and settle my bow and quiver of arrows on one side of me before turning to give Peeta a kiss hello.

I let out a little shriek of my own when I find his face directly in front of mine as I turn towards him and he sacks me over onto my back, peppering light, playful kisses all over my face and neck. Between his lips and the meadow grass tickling at the sensitive exposed skin, my shriek quickly dissolves into the less attractive guffaws of unchecked laughter. I hate the sound but Peeta says it's his favorite noise right behind the sound of our children at play.

Knowing that he's hearing both at once right now makes me feel like the unpleasantness with which my day began is just that much farther away from this happy little bubble we're floating in now.

"…Mmm…but not as early as their mother." He says hovering over me where I lie on my back looking up at a sky filled with large, fluffy clouds still painted a color close to Peeta's favorite hue of orange by the rising sun. I know this is his roundabout way of asking me all of the questions I know are spinning through his head. _What nightmare was it? How long did it last? Why didn't you wake me? Isn't this the third time this week? Can't I do_ anything _to help?_

I smile reassuringly up at him and reach out to trace the puckered white line of an old burn scar on his jaw and draw his lips down to mine, communicating with him in the way that has always come easier for me than the words he is best as using to express himself.

"I'm good now." I whisper and he pulls back slightly to search my eyes for deception the way he looks into the same gray eyes our young son has inherited from me. While the truth he's usually looking for in our son's is related to how many cookies he's managed to sneak from the jar on the kitchen counter, Peeta is searching mine for the truth of why I'd left our bed this morning.

"You're all here with me." I say a little stronger and it is the truth.

For as long as I resisted the joys of a home with children for the somewhat selfish, though no less pleasurable joys of a home with just Peeta and I and an old mangy orange cat who knew what a closed bedroom door meant better than either of my children do, I can't imagine my life without them now.

"Sure?" He asks brushing my loose bangs back from my forehead and looking down at me with so much love that I feel my voice catch in my throat and despite my best efforts, tears pool in my eyes.

"Uh huh…promise." I croak out with a sad smile and reach up around Peeta's forearms which he's balancing on as he continues hovering over me. I know there will be questions asked aloud later that he will want me to answer, but for now, he will leave well enough alone.

Peeta opens his mouth to say something else when our daughter suddenly calls out for him, concern that she can't see him lacing her voice.

"Daddy?"

"Right here, baby!" Peeta calls back as we both sit up so that our heads and shoulders are at least visible above the grass.

I get my first good look of the day at my oldest child and feel my heart melt inside my chest when the easy, reassured smile she gives Peeta at seeing he is still nearby morphs into one of stunned excitement when she notices that I'm beside him.

"MOMMY!" She squeals and takes off through the tall grass on the other side of the meadow making a bee line for us; for _me_.

Her toddler brother hustles after her, squawking something about her running too fast for him and I can tell he'll likely be in a full blown tantrum by the time he finally reaches Peeta and I across the wide meadow.

We sign identical sighs of parents who know something loud and ugly is about to go down and help each other up from the ground to prepare for our son's imminent meltdown. I lean into Peeta's side, seeking the kind of comfort I'll allow, and the kind I know Peeta needs right now as we watch our thoughtful oldest child stop running and turn to take her brother's hand. As they walk together I heave another _different_ sigh, wondering, as I often do, how Peeta and I can possibly begin to explain the world of our childhoods to them.

Sweet, loving, care-free babies who don't know what it is to fear each birthday because it means you are one year closer to your name going into a reaping ball that could send you into an arena where you will fight other children to the death. Children who don't know they are right this moment, making their way across a field where thousands of their people lie buried beneath their little feet.

"How will we ever do it, Peeta?" I whisper as the children are now halfway across the field on their way to reach us.

After so many years of both of us worrying ourselves over the same question again and again, Peeta doesn't need to ask what I mean. He only pulls me closer into his side and turns his head as if he's going to kiss my cheek.

"We'll find a way." He says and his voice is so certain, so unwaveringly sure, that I let a tiny glimmer of hope that we will be able to explain our roles in the rebellion and the reasons why it had to happen in a way that won't terrify such innocent, trusting souls as theirs.

"We have the book…" he says and I think of the memory book, pages and pages of ink and pencil we created partly as a form of therapy and partly to fill idle hours after our return to District 12 that would have otherwise been spent wallowing in the sadness of all that we'd been through both together and apart.

The girl is just finishing up her first year of formal schooling and has learned a little about the Hunger Games. She knows we played some part in them and the questions have just begun. At 6 years-old, her curiosity has bested her respect for the unknown reasons behind why her father sometimes has to grab onto the back of a chair and squeeze his eyes shut tight until a painful thought passes him by, or why her mother is sometimes moody and withdrawn for seemingly no reason at all.

"We have each other…" Peeta says pulling me out of my jumble of troubling thoughts. "We'll explain it to them in a way that'll make them brave, not afraid." He says nodding and I smile finally, the furrow between my eyebrows disappearing for now as I think of all the ways Peeta has made me brave throughout our lives just by what he says and how he says it.

And just like that, the boy with the bread has given me the hope I needed to keep on going. To remember that not every morning is a morning _like this one_.

To remember that most mornings are filled with little ones sneaking into our bed for a morning cuddle, the smell of fresh bread wafting up the steps to wake me, or when the stars align just right, the quiet moans and sighs of a hunger for each other that I expect will never be satiated.

I nod because Peeta's right (he almost always is, but I don't usually tell him that for fear he'll get a big head about it) and chuckle as he leaves my side to run and scoop both children up into his arms playfully as they reach over his shoulders chanting _'Mommy! Mommy!'_

"Mommy?!" Peeta gasps and holds them both easily in each muscular arm, kept so by days spent working in the town bakery we rebuilt together and now jointly own. "Where's Mommy, I don't see her!?" He asks spinning from side to side, but not turning around to face where I am standing behind him. The children flop helplessly like rag dolls in his arms, laughing and squealing as they play one of their favorite games with their father.

"There! There! Right there!" The girl finally gets out through a peal of giggles and the boy begins to fuss more earnestly, reaching up to make a grab for Peeta's face in hopes he will catch an ear, lip or perhaps his father's nose which are all the same moves he has when the two play wrestle on our floor at home together.

"Oh! There she is!" Peeta says finally looking over his shoulder in the direction the girl is pointing and narrowly missing his son's tiny, but nimble fingers as they make a grab for his full bottom lip.

He leans forward so that their feet touch the ground and I kneel, laughing as they reach me at the same time and sack me back into nearly the same spot in the tall grass where just a few moments ago I was getting my good morning kisses from their father.

"Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi!" I get out between kisses to their baby-soft cheeks and sit up with the smell of cinnamon toast in my nose and the grainy feel of bits of sugar on my face, remnants, I'm certain, of their breakfast.

"Did you sleep well last night?" I ask sitting up with them both in my lap as Peeta comes to stand next to us, looking down proudly at our little family with his hands on his hips and a smile of pure bliss on his lips. He may be pushing forty these days, but when he's looking at me with the children he waited so long for cuddled in my arms, I have no trouble seeing the reflection of the boy I fell in love with all those years ago.

"Uh huh, but then we wanted to go out and play!" The girl says and smooths her dark hair out of her eyes when a warm spring breeze brushes past us all.

Peeta huffs a laugh and nods, looking around at the meadow where the same breeze is now causing the grass to sway back and forth and then up at the beautiful sky with its big clouds whose edges are still kissed with the glow of early morning sun. I recognize the look in his eye immediately and know that I will likely come across a painting later this week in the art studio he's turned our basement into that perfectly captures the beauty of the meadow right now.

"And I couldn't argue with them," he says and waves a hand towards the meadow as we listen to the birds all around us in the trees, busy with the morning's work of feeding new little chicks and beginning the routines that ensure everyone in their nest will survive another day.

I smile to myself, thinking I could learn something from the birds.

"So we ate our cinnamon toast on the way out here." He says glancing down at me and rolling his eyes. "I know it's not the way we usually do things, but we couldn't resist on a morning like this." He says casually and my head snaps around at his use of that phrase which I've always personally used to describe my 'bad days', but have never shared with him aloud.

I spend a long moment looking up at him in bewilderment, wondering at how even when he doesn't know he's helping me, Peeta is still able to put my mind completely at ease with just a word or two.

I look down at my babies who have stopped their squirming, are both resting with their heads on my chest. They regard each other peacefully over the rise and fall of each breath I take. I don't realize that I haven't said anything in almost a minute when Peeta speaks again.

"Katniss?" he says softly and I raise my eyes to his in response.

"You good?" He asks and I catch a hint of concern in his voice which he immediately covers with a smile as the children turn their eyes towards him as well.

I look out over the meadow once more and feel a tiny shiver go through me at the thought of such peace and beauty having consumed a place where the bodies beneath the ground speak to the horrors that once occurred here.

But for now, and as far as the children on my lap know, it is a place of chasing games, summer picnics, and walks to a lake which has become their favorite special place as it once was mine.

"For now." I answer honestly and smile up at him.

The shiver that went through me has propelled the children back into motion and they both climb from my lap and take off through the grass again, the girl yelling something about looking for a rabbit nest she'd seen the week before.

"Okay, but we're going to head back home in a few minutes and see if your Pa-paw wants some breakfast!" Peeta calls after them and I snort.

"You mean if he's awake and sober enough for his stomach to handle some breakfast." I smirk.

"Yeah, that too." He chuckles and offers me his hand.

I place my hand inside of Peeta's and he pulls me up to my feet where I don't let go, instead giving it a warm squeeze of thanks before we head off to collect Haymitch and ensure he gets at least one solid meal per day in his stomach.

The children cheer at the mention of their favorite person outside of Peeta and I and we both shake our heads because at most, Haymitch seems to tolerate them.

It's all a ruse, of course. Peeta and I have spent many a night lying in bed together sharing a story of having caught our family's supposedly reluctant 'Pa-paw' cuddling in a rocking chair on our porch on a summer night with one of the little ones on his lap, or spotted him watching the children play with as close to a contented smile as Haymitch can manage.

"Wouldn't want him to miss a morning like this, would we?" I ask scooping my son up on my hip as he scampers back to us after giving up on trying to keep up with his sister who is skipping happily back towards home.

"No, no, no, no-" My beautiful baby boy chants and then squeals with laughter when Peeta reaches over to take him from me, flipping him upside down and blowing a raspberry on his round belly which only causes louder and more hysterics.

I walk a little behind them, watching my daughter skipping obliviously through this meadow that hides a truth I'm not quite ready to disclose to her yet, and Peeta who has swung our son up onto his shoulders so that matching shocks of wavy blonde hair are almost stacked on top of one another like a totem pole.

I drink in the scene, lit with the light of a sun I know instinctively sits at about midway through the eight o'clock hour, and make a point to remember this very moment and the happy sounds of my family the next time I venture out to the woods on a morning _like this one._


End file.
